Ewen Park Outdoor Learning Centre (OLC)

2023 Darug Country / Hurlstone Park, NSW

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Ewen Park Outdoor Learning Centre (OLC)

2023 Darug Country / Hurlstone Park, NSW

Sam Crawford Architects (SCA) and Sue Barnsley Design were engaged by Canterbury Bankstown Council to deliver a new outdoor learning centre to the community of Hurlstone Park. Sited in Ewen Park, adjacent the Cooks River, this project delivers a vibrant place for meeting, promotion of place and environmental awareness.

The brief required a simple yet dynamic shelter, together with rejuvenation of the former tennis courts, to provide the community of Hurlstone Park with a flexible-use outdoor learning centre. The site is located at a threshold to the Marrickville Golf Course along its northern boundary, with series of linear parks that are are concurrently being upgraded by Canterbury Bankstown Council in association with Sue Barnsley Design to its south, as well as the upgrade of the Lang Road Pedestrian Footbridge along the eastern boundary and river’s edge. This is a project that must integrate and mediate a series of complex adjacent developments and environmental constraints including flooding, extensive land fill, as well as visual and acoustic privacy.

The shelter is sited in the north western corner of the site, in the area of site least impacted by flooding, providing an enhanced and welcoming presence to Tennent Parade. It is expressed as a pavilion with expansive roof that provides shelter to the central gathering space, as well as providing peripheral shade and shelter for the young families that will continue to utilise the rejuvenated site as a learn to ride bicycle area.

The playful edges of both the shelter and landscape afford flexibility in use, breath of scope for inclusion of public art, and carefully integrate with adjacent developments in a manner that affords universal access through the site, with framed views and vistas of the Cooks River.

Awards

2024 – AIA NSW Small Project Architecture – Shortlist

Project Team

Sam Crawford, Justine Anderson, Scott Rowland, Caitlin Condon, Jarrod Ruchalski, Sofia Nay

Consultant Team

Landscape Architect – Sue Barnsley Design
Access Consultant – Morris Goding
Artist – Vertebrae
BCA Consultant – Philip Chun
Civil & Structural Engineer – Partridge
Electrical, Hydraulic & Traffic Engineer – JN
Geotech Engineer – GeoEnviro Consultancy
Quantity Surveyor – MDA Quantity Surveyors
Surveyor – Rygate Surveyors
Town Planning – Damian O’Toole Town Planning

Construction Management

City of Canterbury Bankstown

Client

City of Canterbury Bankstown

Photographer

Brett Boardman